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Confronting Prior Conceptions in Paleontology Courses (Elements of Paleontology)
By Margaret M Yacobucci. 2018
People hold a variety of prior conceptions that impact their learning. Prior conceptions that include erroneous or incomplete understandings represent…
a significant barrier to durable learning, as they are often difficult to change. While researchers have documented students' prior conceptions in many areas of geoscience, little is known about prior conceptions involving paleontology. In this book, data on student prior conceptions from two introductory undergraduate paleontology courses are presented. In addition to more general misunderstandings about the nature of science, many students hold incorrect ideas about methods of historical geology, Earth history, ancient life, and evolution. Of special note are student perceptions of the limits of paleontology as scientific inquiry. By intentionally eliciting students' prior conceptions and implementing the pedagogical strategies described in other Elements in this series, lecturers can shape instruction to challenge this negative view of paleontology and improve student learning.Hands-on learning in paleontology, and geology in general, is fairly common practice. Students regularly use rocks, fossils, and data in…
the classroom throughout their undergraduate career, but they typically do it sitting in a chair in a lab. Kinesthetic learning is a teaching model that requires students to be physically active while learning. Students may be involved in a physical activity during class or might be using their own bodies to model some important concept. This book briefly discusses the theory behind kinesthetic learning and how it fits into a student-centered, active-learning classroom. It then describes in detail methods for incorporating it into student exercises on biostratigraphy, assessment of sampling completeness, and modeling evolutionary processes. Assessment data demonstrates that these exercises have led to significantly improved student learning outcomes tied to these concepts.Student-Centered Teaching in Paleontology and Geoscience Classrooms (Elements of Paleontology)
By Robyn Mieko Dahl. 2018
Research on learning and cognition in geoscience education research and other discipline-based education communities suggests that effective instruction should include…
three key components: a) activation of students' prior knowledge on the subject, b) an active learning pedagogy that allows students to address any existing misconceptions and then build a new understanding of the concept, and c) metacognitive reflections that require students to evaluate their own learning processes during the lesson. This Element provides an overview of the research on student-centered pedagogy in introductory geoscience and paleontology courses and gives examples of these instructional approaches. Student-centered learning shifts the power and attention in a classroom from the instructor to the students. In a student-centered classroom, students are in control of their learning experience and the instructor functions primarily as a guide. Student-centered classrooms trade traditional lecture for conceptually-oriented tasks, collaborative learning activities, new technology, inquiry-based learning, and metacognitive reflection.The Neotoma Paleoecology Database: A Research Outreach Nexus (Elements of Paleontology)
By John W Williams, Carol Ormond, James S Oliver, Amy Myrbo, Shane Loeffler, Russell Graham, Simon James Goring. 2018
Paleoecological data from the Quaternary Period (2.6 million years ago to present) provides an opportunity for educational outreach for the…
earth and biological sciences. Paleoecology data repositories serve as technical hubs and focal points within their disciplinary communities and so are uniquely situated to help produce teaching modules and engagement resources. The Neotoma Paleoecology Database provides support to educators from primary schools to graduate students. In collaboration with pedagogical experts, the Neotoma Paleoecology Database team has developed teaching modules and model workflows. Early education is centered on discovery; higher-level educational tools focus on illustrating best practices for technical tasks. Collaborations among pedagogic experts, technical experts and data stewards, centered around data resources such as Neotoma, provide an important role within research communities, and an important service to society, supporting best practices, translating current research advances to interested audiences, and communicating the importance of individual research disciplines.Dinosaurs: A Catalyst for Critical Thought (Elements of Paleontology)
By Darrin Pagnac. 2018
University dinosaur courses provide an influential venue for developing aptitude beyond knowledge of terrestrial Mesozoic reptiles. Passion for dinosaurs, when…
properly directed, can trigger interest in science and be used to develop critical thinking skills. Examination of dinosaur paleontology can develop competence in information analysis, perception of flawed arguments, recognition of persuasion techniques, and application of disciplined thought processes. Three methods for developing critical thought are outlined in this book. The first uses dinosaur paleontology to illustrate logical fallacies and flawed arguments. The second is a method for evaluating primary dinosaur literature by students of any major. The final example entails critique of dinosaur documentaries based on the appearance of dinosaurs and the disconnect between scientific fact and storytelling techniques. Students are owed more than dinosaur facts; lecturers should foster a set of skills that equips students with the tools necessary to be perceptive citizens and science advocates.Integrating Macrostrat and Rockd into Undergraduate Earth Science Teaching (Elements of Paleontology)
By Shanan Peters, Rowan Lockwood, Phoebe A Cohen. 2018
New online resources are opening doors for education and outreach in the Earth sciences. One of the most innovative online…
earth science portals is Macrostrat and its mobile client Rockd - an interface that combines geolocated geological maps with stratigraphic information, lithological data, and crowd-sourced images and descriptions of outcrops. These tools provide a unique educational opportunity for students to interact with primary geological data, create connections between local outcrops and global patterns, and make new field observations. Rockd incorporates an aspect of social media to its platform, which creates a sense of community for users. This book outlines these resources, gives instructions on how to use them, and provides examples of how to integrate these resources into a variety of paleontology and earth science courses.Integrating Active Learning into Paleontology Classes (Elements of Paleontology)
By Alison N Olcott. 2018
The educational benefits of replacing in-class lectures with hands-on activities are clear. Such active learning is a natural fit for…
paleontology, which can provide opportunities for examining fossils, analyzing data and writing. Additionally, there are a number of topics in the field that are exciting to geology majors and non-majors alike: very few can resist the lure of dinosaurs, huge meteor impacts, vicious Cretaceous sharks or a giant Pleistocene land mammal. However, it can seem difficult to introduce these techniques into a large general education class full of non-majors: paleontological specimens provide a natural starting point for hands-on classroom activities, but in a large class it is not always practical or possible to provide enough fossil material for all students. The book introduces different types of active learning approaches, and then explains how they have been applied to a large introductory paleontology class for non-majors.Dozens of Dinos
By Mike Weinstein, Kirsten Guerin. 2018
Have you ever wondered what it would be like to stand next to a real dinosaur? Millions of years ago,…
Dinosaurs ruled the earth and left their fossils behind for us to find all over the world. These fossils help archaeologists and paleontologists learn about what dinosaurs may have looked like. Some were really big and some were really small. In this story, you will learn all of the different shapes & sizes of your favorite dinosaurs before they went extinct. How will you measure up next to your favorite dinosaur?Evolution and Development of Fishes
By Martha Richter, Charlie Underwood, Zerina Johanson. 2019
Fish, or lower vertebrates, occupy the basal nodes of the vertebrate phylogeny, and are therefore crucial in interpreting almost every…
feature of more advanced vertebrates, including amphibians, reptiles, birds and mammals. Recent research focuses on combining evolutionary observations - primarily from the fish fossil record - with developmental data from living fishes, in order to better interpret evolutionary history and vertebrate phylogeny. This book highlights the importance of this research in the interpretation of vertebrate evolution, bringing together world-class palaeontologists and biologists to summarise the most interesting, current and cutting-edge topics in fish evolution and development. It will be an invaluable tool for researchers in early vertebrate palaeontology and evolution, and those particularly interested in the interface between evolution and development.The Everything Kids' Dinosaurs Book: Stomp, Crash, And Thrash Through Hours of Puzzles, Games, And Activities! (Everything® Kids)
By Kathi Wagner, Sheryl Racine. 2005
Stomp, crash, and thrash through hours of puzzles, games, and activities!The Everything Kids' Dinosaur Book combines exciting and educational facts…
about dinosaurs with super-cool puzzles and awesome activities that will keep kids roaring, stomping and leaping for more. Inside they'll find out about the different types of dinosaurs, where they came from, how they lived and a ton (or two) more!With The Everything Kids' Dinosaur Book, kids can:Learn about what paleontologists studyManeuver through swampy amphibian mazesCreate big dino fun with crafty art and cooking projectsHunt for hidden dinosaurs in the most unlikely placesDiscover modern-day fun facts about fossilsPart educational tool, part activity book, The Everything Kids Dinosaur Book is guaranteed to keep kids entertained--and learning--for hours at a time.La paleontología en 100 preguntas (100 Preguntas esenciales)
By Adriana Oliver. 2018
Las respuestas de la ciencia a las preguntas fundamentales sobre el origen de la vida y el origen del ser…
humano. Desde las primeras bacterias -3.800 millones de años- y los primeros organismos, plantas y vertebrados, hasta la conquista de la tierra, la era de los dinosaurios, los mamíferos y la aparición de los homínidos en el mioceno hace 7 millones de años. ¿Son primas las ballenas y las vacas?, ¿Cómo eran las primeras formas de vida?, ¿Cómo afectaron los cambios climáticos a la vida?, ¿Cómo pudo surgir la primera célula?, ¿Qué es la explosión cámbrica?, ¿Por qué salieron los anfibios del agua?, ¿Es cierto que los dinosaurios tenían miedo a los ratones?, ¿Cómo perdieron las ballenas las patas traseras?, ¿Estamos llegando a la 6º extinción?, ¿Cuáles fueron los primeros europeos?, ¿Cuándo apareció el lenguaje?, ¿Existen fósiles vivientes? ¿Quién no se ha preguntado alguna vez por la aparición de los primeros seres vivos, los dinosaurios que habitaban la Tierra o el origen del ser humano? La paleontología, a través del estudio de los fósiles nos propone un emocionante viaje para conocer los seres vivos que habitaron la Tierra en las diferentes eras geológicas. En este libro te invitamos a bucear entre la historia de la vida en la Tierra y descubrir sus grandes momentos como la aparición de las primeras bacterias hace 3.800 millones de años, pasando por los primeros organismos acorazados, las primeras plantas terrestres, los primeros vertebrados, la conquista de la tierra, los primeros bosques, la era de los dinosaurios, la aparición de los mamíferos, la aparición de las plantas con flor o la aparición de los homínidos. ¿Te animas a descubrir cómo eran?La Ciencia de los Dinosaurios en 100 preguntas (100 Preguntas esenciales)
By Jaime Mora Cuadrado. 2017
Las claves científicas del fascinante mundo de la Paleontología de los dinosaurios. Su origen y descubrimiento, su evolución, extinción y…
el mundo en que vivían. Un recorrido exhaustivo por los interrogantes y temas más controvertidos, con rigor y amenidad teniendo en cuenta los descubrimientos y estudios científicos más recientes. ¿Qué hizo que los dinosaurios fuesen los amos de la tierra?, ¿Cuál es el eslabón perdido entre reptiles y aves?, ¿Pudo vivir algún dinosaurio en la Antártida?, ¿Hubo un invierno nuclear hace 65 millones de años?, ¿Por qué sobrevivieron los cocodrilos y no los dinosaurios a la extinción?, ¿Así que ahora hay que imaginar al terrible Tiranosaurio... con plumas?, ¿Cómo una especie de un metro se transforma en otra de cuarenta metros?, ¿Podemos crear un dinosaurio a partir de un pollo?, ¿Siguen entre nosotros?Dark Matter and the Dinosaurs: The Astounding Interconnectedness of the Universe
By Lisa Randall. 2015
Bestselling author of Warped Passages and Knocking on Heaven's Door and one of today's most influential and highly cited theo-retical…
physicists, Professor Lisa Randall once again effortlessly delivers fascinating science to the general reader. Weaving together the cosmos' his-tory and our own in an expanding intellectual adventure story, Dark Matter and the Dinosaurs takes us from the mysteries of dark matter and our cosmic environment to the conditions for life on Earth.Sixty-six million years ago, an object the size of a city descended from space to crash into Earth, creating a cata-clysm that killed off the dinosaurs, along with three-quarters of the other species on the planet. What was its origin? Randall proposes it was a comet that was dislodged from its orbit as the Solar System passed through a disk of dark matter that is embedded in the plane of the Milky Way. Her research challenges the usual assumptions about the simple nature of dark matter and demonstrates how scientists formulate and establish new ideas. In a sense, it might have been dark matter that killed the dinosaurs. With her unique and wide-ranging perspective, Randall connects dark matter to the history of the world in the broadest terms. Bringing in pop culture and social and political viewpoints, she shares with us the latest findings--established and speculative--regarding dark matter, the cosmos, the galaxy, asteroids, comets, and impacts, as well as life's development and extinctions. Randall makes clear how connected the planet is to the makeup of the Universe, but also how fragile our place in the Universe, which evolved over billions of years, might be.In this brilliant and fresh exploration of our cosmic environment, Professor Randall explains the underlying science of our world in the breathtaking tale of a Universe in which the small and the large, the visible and the hidden are intimately related. Dark Matter and the Dinosaurs illuminates the deep relationships that are critical to our world as well as the astonishing beauty of the structures and connections that surround us. It's impossible to read this book and look at either Earth or sky again in the same way.The Mjølnir Impact Event and its Consequences: Geology and Geophysics of a Late Jurassic/Early Cretaceous Marine Impact Event (Impact Studies)
By Filippos Tsikalas, Henning Dypvik, Morten Smelror. 2011
The Mjølnir impact structure was recognized in 1993 and included in the Earth Impact Database in 1996, based on the…
discoveries of unequivocal meteorite impact indicators such as shocked quartz, Ir-enrichments, possible glass remnants, fragments of nickel-rich iron oxides, in addition to the convincing complex crater shape of the structure. This book presents the geological and geophysical history of the Barents Sea region along with the discovery of the Mjølnir impact crater. We place the Mjølnir event into the geological framework of the region and present elaborative numerical models of its formation and associated tsunami generation. The book represents an update and synthesis as well as the complete compilation of the Mjølnir crater studies.Mangrove Ichnology of the Bay of Bengal Coast, Eastern India (Springer Geology)
By Chirananda De. 2019
This book focuses on the world’s largest mangrove delta complex, located at Sundarban, a world heritage site, and on the…
relatively new and rapidly expanding scientific discipline of ichnology. In addition to presenting a range of ichnological research databases that are widely applicable to multidisciplinary research fields in geology, biophysics, biology, ecology, geomorphology and the marine and environmental sciences, it addresses the global concern of rising sea levels to explain growing ecological problems, from the mass mortality of coastal organisms and rapid loss of mangrove forest wealth, to widespread coastal and riverbank erosion. It also demonstrates the value of applying new ichnological tools to coastal geotechnical planning and programming, and to groundwater exploration. Thus, the book addresses a broad readership including earth scientists from various disciplines, state administrators and members of the general public.This book is devoted to 250 years of collecting, organizing and preserving paleontological specimens by generations of scientists. Paleontological collections…
are a huge resource for modern research and should be available for national and international scientists and institutions, as well as prospective public and private customers. These collections are an important part of the scientific enterprise, supporting research, public education, and the documentation of past biodiversity. Much of what we are beginning to understand about our world, we owe to the collection, preservation, and ongoing study of natural specimens. Properly preserved collections of fossil marine or terrestrial plants and animals are archives of Earth's history and vital to our ability to learn about our place in its future.The approach employed by the editors involves not only an introduction to the paleontological collections in general, but also information on the international and national collection networks. Particular attention is given to new exhibition concepts and approaches of sorting, preserving and researching in paleontological collections and also their neglect and/or threat. In addition, the book provides information on all big public museums, on important state museums and regional Museums, and also on university collections.This is a highly informative and carefully presented book, providing scientific insight for readers with an interest in fossil record, biodiversity, taxonomy, or evolution, as well as natural history collections at large.Advances in South American Micropaleontology: Selected Papers of the 11th Argentine Paleontological Congress (Springer Earth System Sciences)
By Graciela Andrea Concheyro, Emiliana Bernasconi, Gabriela Catalina Cusminsky. 2019
This book offers many examples of calcareous microfossils and describes a new microfaunistic record in Argentina. These selected papers of…
the 11th Argentine Paleontological Congress include micropaleontological studies on material of different geological ages from several sites in Argentina and Colombia. The authors highlight several geological findings and explain the paleoenvironmental changes in Argentina and Colombia.Atlas of a Lost World: Travels in Ice Age America
By Craig Childs. 2018
From the author of Apocalyptic Planet comes a vivid travelogue through prehistory, that traces the arrival of the first people…
in North America at least twenty thousand years ago and the artifacts that tell of their lives and fates.In Atlas of a Lost World, Craig Childs upends our notions of where these people came from and who they were. How they got here, persevered, and ultimately thrived is a story that resonates from the Pleistocene to our modern era. The lower sea levels of the Ice Age exposed a vast land bridge between Asia and North America, but the land bridge was not the only way across. Different people arrived from different directions, and not all at the same time.The first explorers of the New World were few, their encampments fleeting. The continent they reached had no people but was inhabited by megafauna—mastodons, giant bears, mammoths, saber-toothed cats, five-hundred-pound panthers, enormous bison, and sloths that stood one story tall. The first people were hunters—Paleolithic spear points are still encrusted with the proteins of their prey—but they were wildly outnumbered and many would themselves have been prey to the much larger animals.Atlas of a Lost World chronicles the last millennia of the Ice Age, the violent oscillations and retreat of glaciers, the clues and traces that document the first encounters of early humans, and the animals whose presence governed the humans’ chances for survival. A blend of science and personal narrative reveals how much has changed since the time of mammoth hunters, and how little. Across unexplored landscapes yet to be peopled, readers will see the Ice Age, and their own age, in a whole new light.What Was the Ice Age? (What Was?)
By Nico Medina, David Groff, Who Hq. 2017
A mesmerizing overview of the world as it was when glaciers covered the earth and long-extinct creatures like the woolly…
mammoths and saber-toothed cats battled to survive.Go back 20,000 years ago to a time of much colder global temperatures when glaciers and extensive sheets of ice covered much of our planet. As these sheets traveled, they caused enormous changes in the Earth's landscape and climate, leading to the evolution of creatures such as giant armadillos, saber-toothed cats, and woolly mammoths as well as club-wielding Neanderthals and later the cleverer modern humans. Nico Medina re-creates this harsh ancient world in a vivid and easy-to-read narrative.The focus of this book is on the more than 2000 caves of the Greenbrier Valley of West Virginia of…
which the 14 with lengths greater than 10 km have an aggregate length of 639 km The major caves form the core part of sub-basins which drain to big springs and ultimately to the Greenbrier River Individual chapters of this book describe each of the major caves and its associated drainage basin The caves are formed in the Mississippian Greenbrier Limestone in a setting of undulating gentle folds Fractures lineaments and confining layers within the limestone are the main controlling factors The caves underlie an extensive sinkhole plain which may relate to a major erosion surface The caves are habitat for both aquatic and terrestrial organisms which are cataloged and described as are the paleontological remains found in some of the caves The sinkhole plain of the Greenbrier karst and the underlying complex of cave systems are the end result of at least a ten million year history of landscape evolution which can be traced through the evolving sequence of cave passages and which is described in this book